Casper's Cherokee Sirloin Room

Michael, myself, Chris and Tanya all went to Casper’s Cherokee Sirloin Room in West St. Paul for dinner.  Every Thursday, they have a birthday dinner.  If you go to the restaurant on the week of your birthday, they give you a free steak dinner with the purchase of another entrée of $15.95 or greater.   We had reservations for 6:30 pm for both Michael and Tanya’s birthday.  Michael’s in on the 5^th and Tanya’s on the 6^th.  Michael and I have been doing this for his birthday for 5 years now and we have done it occasionally for my birthday too.  This was the first time that Tanya and Chris have come with.  Even though Michael and Tanya’s birthdays are only 1 day apart, they fell on different weeks last year and couldn’t be celebrated together. 

 

Our overall experience was absolutely horrible.  First, we had issues with a parking spot and a woman that looked like a man that didn’t know how to park.  We had no confrontation with each other, except Michael to make a friendly comment to the passenger saying that he knew both cars could get into those parking spots.  The passenger didn’t say anything.  Once in the restaurant, the place was jam packed.  The restaurant had been closed for the past 2 Thursdays due to Christmas and New Years Day so they has lots of birthday’s to catch up on.  I approached the check-in area since the reservation was under my name.  They needed to see Michael’s ID for proof of his birthday and he was behind me and made his way through the crowd to get up to me when the woman who had parked next to us said to Michael, “What, are you going to bud in front of me in the restaurant too?” as her breath reeked like cigarettes.  Michael knew it was the woman who parked at the same time as us.  Michael asked if she was serious and she said she was and that he needs to stop acting like an ass.  WHAT?!?  Chris then asked her if it was her birthday and she said no.  He then asked if it was someone in her party’s birthday and she said yes.  He then said to her, “Well, I hope your night gets better” and walked away.  Michael said she wasn’t mad at only at him for the parking lot.  She was mad yesterday and the day before and the day before.  She is that type of person who is always mad. 

 

We were seated pretty much right away but that was only after experiencing the two hostesses arguing with each other right in front of everyone. Once seated, our dinner order was not taken for 25 minutes.  Our server had come around about 10 minutes after we arrived to take a drink order and to deliver bread.  Once she came back, she asked us if we were ready to order.  We were but told her that we didn’t have any silverware so she left the table to get silverware but taking our order. She didn’t come back and take our order for another 15 minutes or so.  The server was not very friendly and did not smile once for the first half of our visit and appeared to be very stressed out due to the amount of people dining.  I don’t care that it’s busy but she needs to put her fake smiley face on for each and every customer and not make us feel like we are inconveniencing her.  Tanya and Michael both get the West Side steak dinner, including salad, potato, bread and a piece of cake for free.  Chris wanted the steak and Tanya wanted Chicken Cordon Bleu so they swapped but Tanya tried to order the $14.99 chicken and add an order of crab legs to it but they wouldn’t let her do it since her entrée was not $15.95, and that was the rules of the buy one get one free, even though she was spending more than that with the crab legs.  Fine, not a huge deal but Tanya had to order something different. 

We ran out of bread and butter and it took awhile for the server to refill.  I only drank water and it took a long time for me to get my water refilled.  So long I drank all of Michael’s water in the meantime.  For some reason when you only drink water, they don’t think it’s important to refill as you didn’t actually order a drink and water must not count.  Once there were some bigger groups of people that were leaving, our server started to remove herself from her crabby pants and actually cracked a smile.  It took too long for the cake to arrive after we were all finished with our meals and it took even longer for her to deliver the bill as well as pick it up after we were waiting for change/receipt.  Of course she got really nice at the end when it’s time to leave the tip.  Our overall dining experience took 2.5 hours.  The owner always walks around the dining room asking how everything is and I wanted so badly for him to stop at the table to ask because I would have given him my thoughts.  I almost left my chair to find him at one point but I was so exhausted from everything that happened that it wasn’t worth it.  My birthday is in 2 weeks and we would have gone back there for my birthday but now I have no desire to go there, nor to go there again.  I am writing this because I want there to be public record of this dining experience.  I wrote of my experience of a wonderful dinner in Tampa, Florida and the marketing director of that restaurant contacted me telling me they appreciated my blog post of my experience and they offered me a gift certificate to come dine with them again when I am in the Tampa area.  If there is a good dining story, I’ll tell it.  If there is an equally bad dining story, I’m telling that too.  In conclusion, the dining experience was awful but the company was, as always, wonderful.